Walmart iPhone on sale the 28th for a lot more than $99

Posted on | December 17, 2008 | No Comments

At this point, it’s clear that the $99 iPhone 3G rumor was just that: rumor. We have a letter that we believe to be authentic from a source within Walmart that says the iPhone will launch in the house that Sam built at 9am December 28th. At launch, only the 8GB ($197) and 16GB ($297) iPhone 3Gs will be available with a required signature on a 2-year AT&T contract. An internal pilot program kicks off today at 488 stores across the nation. The iPhone 3G and a sack of garden manurer all under the same roof… heaven.

Motorola apparently planning another year of existence with claimed 2009 lineup for Verizon

Posted on | December 17, 2008 | No Comments

Our first thought when we saw Boy Genius Report’s alleged shots of Moto phones that’ll find a home on Verizon in 2009 was, “holy cow, these look fake.” And yes, granted, they’re all renders — but what really set off the alarms for us was the fact that they look… well, nothing like Motorolas. At all. But then we thought about it for a second and realized that hey, you know, when you’re a once-great cellphone manufacturer losing market share hand over first and you’re looking for the Next Big Thing, you probably want to try something a little new, a little fresh, and a little crazy. So on that note, Verizon can apparently expect a “Rush 2″ early in the year that continues Moto’s contribution to the low-cost messaging phone trend; the “Calgary” (pictured), looking like a high-end Sidekick Slide minus the Sidekick; the “Inferno,” presumably succeeding the ZN4 (which was coincidentally codenamed “Blaze”); and finally the gorgeous “Flash,” which — as far as we’re concerned — should just take the A3000’s place. So yeah, these could be an elaborate hoax, but for Motorola’s sake, we hope they’re not.

• Read

Clevo laptop shocker! Scores of new, cryptic model names

Posted on | December 17, 2008 | No Comments

We got a good look at the M98xNU a few days ago, and now it seems that one of those crazy kids over at the Notebook Review forums has dropped the dime on some other new Clevo notebook models we might be seeing at CeBIT 2009. Most notably, he names the predecessor to the company’s D901C laptop: the D90xF will offer a 17-inch screen (up to 1920 x 1200), and it may be Core i7, though this is not certain (sometimes desktop chips end up in high-end laptops, so it wouldn’t be unheard of). Also in this batch are several touchscreen tablets, including the 7-inch TN70xM with an Atom Z series processor and passive cooling, the 8.9-inch T89xM with “rugged” design, and the TN12xT, a 12.1-inch based on the Montevina platform with Intel’s GM45 chipset. Additionally, we can look forward to the second quarter of 2009 for the launch of the 10.2-inch M71xL, the 10.1-inch M81xL and the 13.3-inch R13xT. And if that weren’t enough, early next year should see the release of the company’s widescreen W76x series of laptops with 15.6-inch, 16:9 aspect ratio displays. Not that you’ll necessarily see the Clevo name on many of these — the company is known primarily as an OEM. Still, this is an interesting peek into next year’s possible Alienware, Voodoo and Sager machines. And you know what? There’s plenty more where that came from — hit the read link for all the glorious details.

Read

Cyber Sport’s Orbita Mouse is a revolution

Posted on | December 15, 2008 | No Comments

We’ve seen the Cyber Sport Orbita Mouse bouncing around the Internets for about a year in search of a manufacturer. Now they’ve got it, with a corresponding January 2009 retail delivery date to match. The big selling point on this 800 DPI mouse is the use of a spinning scroll-wheel that replaces the typical left and right mouse buttons (push down for left-click, squeeze for right) — it’s like a Griffin PowerMate riding optical wheels. That gives you 3-axis control over objects in 3D be they wireframe models, the world according to Google Earth, or a BFG 9000. It also makes for quick scrolling through documents or a low-cost jog dial for frame-by-frame video manipulation. Orbita communicates wirelessly over 2.4GHz “zero lag” RF to the USB charging base and includes PC and Mac compatible software to map the mouse to your different applications. $98.50, that’s how much — render of the Orbita docked after the break along with a video of an early prototype. We want.

• Read

Fujitsu’s water-cooled LifeBook N7010 with secondary 4-inch touchscreen now shipping

Posted on | December 15, 2008 | No Comments

When you pack a 16-inch laptop so full of technology that it requires water cooling, well, you have to expect some compromises. First, the Fujitsu LifeBook N7010 is nearly 2-inches thick and weighs 7 and a half pounds. Then there’s the little limitation of that 1 hour battery life. In return for your suffering you do get a built-in Blu-ray drive, a digital television tuner, 1.3 megapixel webcam, HDMI output, 4x USB, Firewire, 802.11b/g/n WiFi, gigabit Ethernet, eSATA, ExpressCard/54, fingerprint scanning security, and multi-touch touchpad. Oh, and it run Vista atop a 2.4GHz Core 2 Duo P8600 processor, up to 4GB of memory, a 320GB disk, and 256MB of ATI Radeon HD 3470 graphics. As for that multi-function (media control, application launcher, etc.) 4-inch LCD touchscreen sporting 480 x 272 pixels, Akihabara News says it “seems responsive.” So there. Shipping December 26th in Japan.

• Read

Garmin Nuvifone gets FCC approval

Posted on | December 15, 2008 | No Comments

Every once in a while we’re reminded that Garmin’s Nuvifone — announced nearly a year ago — still exists, and this time around it’s none other than the FCC doing the reminding. The curiously-named “Calf” from ASUS turns out to be the Nuvifone once you click through to the label diagrams, and test documentation reveals that 3G is being tested on both Bands II and V — that’s North America-friendly 1900 and 850MHz, for those who aren’t up to snuff on their spectrum terminology. With gub’mint certification under its belt, maybe we can push that 1H 2009 release window to 1Q, eh, Garmin?

Read

Microsoft releases first iPhone application, Seadragon

Posted on | December 15, 2008 | No Comments

After some rumblings this past March, Microsoft has now officially joined the iPhone development community with Seadragon Mobile, a free app that lets you “infinite zoom” gigapixel-sized images. Although Seadragon is available as a Silverlight application on the desktop, Microsoft isn’t bringing Silverlight to the iPhone, so don’t get your hopes up. We’re itching to see if the company has any more apps in the pipeline — we’ll wish for an Office editor, but expect a Minesweeper variant.

Read

Asus unveils Celeron-based Eee Box B203

Posted on | December 15, 2008 | No Comments

Kodak’s 7.6-inch OLED photo frame now available on Amazon

Posted on | December 15, 2008 | No Comments

We knew it was coming, but Amazon is now listing Kodak’s Flickr-compatible OLED 7.6-inch photo frame as in stock and shipping for $999.95. They say a picture is worth a thousand words — here, that word is “dollar.”

Read

“Zune Mobile” gets mentioned, plot thickens for Project Pink

Posted on | December 15, 2008 | No Comments

Okay, so he doesn’t have a thinner Xbox 360 than the rest of us — at least, not one that’s been captured on camera — but Paul Thurrott still knows his way around Redmond, so when he utters the phrase “Zune Mobile,” the cellphone-using world probably ought to sit up and listen. Rumors of Microsoft’s so-called Project Pink have failed to quiet down, but the latest intel seems to suggest that we’re looking not at a Microsoft-branded device but an entire software and service platform — something Danger’s pretty good at managing, and something Microsoft had said it liked when it closed the acquisition earlier this year. How does that tie into Zune Mobile, though? It seems that Pink might include Zune support as part of its offering, which could translate into a Zune Mobile software package for Windows Mobile (prior to the mythical version 7, says Thurrott) that would bring far more robust media support than any Microsoft-powered phone before it, and maybe — just maybe — a wireless download store. Ballmer’s already said Zune support would filter down to Windows Mobile eventually, and for what it’s worth, those alleged Windows Mobile 6.5 shots sure look Zune-ish, which would make true Zune support fit right in — and Danger’s in the PMX group alongside the Zune peeps, so that adds some credence to the potential Pink tie-in. Is it enough to resurrect WinMo from the brink of obsolescence in the consumer space? Likely not, but it’s a heck of a start, and might just quiet down those endless Zunephone rumors for a wee bit.

Read - Paul Thurrott mentions Zune Mobile
Read - Project Pink includes Zune support